As Francis Bacon famously wrote, “Some books are meant to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; That is, some books are to be read only in parts; Others to be read, but not curiously; And some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” As voracious readers, we like to think we give each book we read its due diligence, but you can’t deny that some are worth lingering over, worth turning over in your mind, worth cherishing, longer than others. Of course, such a thing is only objective to a certain extent — everyone has their own favorites, and everyone’s own favorites are, for them, just as important as anyone else’s. Here, we present a list of ten books we think are worth savoring, poring over, and thinking about for years — add to it with your own choices in the comments.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Lo lee ta. We probably don’t have to tell you, but we consider Nabokov one of the finest prose stylists of the English language, his every phrase fit to be mulled over, to be rolled around in your mouth like a rare delicacy. Except there are hundreds of them, right there on the page, you lucky reader.
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Though it’s tempting to just whiz on through this novel, letting the shifting perspectives fill your head like voices on a train, we advocate a slow, careful reading. That way, you can drink in Faulkner’s expressive dialogue line by line, filing each paragraph into the emotional, temporal, or psychological box where it belongs.
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
We could have probably chosen any one of Dickens’ novels for this slot — after all, he generally wrote them in installments, so each section had to be dense enough to hold his readers over for some time. But Bleak House is one of the most complex and engaging works in Dickens’ canon (at least according to us), each minor character and sub-plot worth lingering over.
Full list at Flavorpill
Lo lee ta. We probably don’t have to tell you, but we consider Nabokov one of the finest prose stylists of the English language, his every phrase fit to be mulled over, to be rolled around in your mouth like a rare delicacy. Except there are hundreds of them, right there on the page, you lucky reader.
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
Though it’s tempting to just whiz on through this novel, letting the shifting perspectives fill your head like voices on a train, we advocate a slow, careful reading. That way, you can drink in Faulkner’s expressive dialogue line by line, filing each paragraph into the emotional, temporal, or psychological box where it belongs.Bleak House, Charles DickensWe could have probably chosen any one of Dickens’ novels for this slot — after all, he generally wrote them in installments, so each section had to be dense enough to hold his readers over for some time. But Bleak House is one of the most complex and engaging works in Dickens’ canon (at least according to us), each minor character and sub-plot worth lingering over.
Full list at Flavorpill
No comments:
Post a Comment